


Bed Knobs and Bar Fights

by wheremyinhalerat (bearsquares)



Series: Cracked Actors ['06 Losers AU one-shots] [1]
Category: IT (2017), IT - Stephen King
Genre: AU where they get to chill as adults, Adult Losers Club (IT), Alcohol, Badass Edward, Explicit Language, Implied/Referenced Sex, M/M, Non-Graphic Violence, Slight Memory Loss, The good shit, flustered richie, fuckwords?, idk - Freeform, mentions of Beverly Marsh, smooches
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-25
Updated: 2018-01-25
Packaged: 2019-03-09 03:39:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,881
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13472931
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bearsquares/pseuds/wheremyinhalerat
Summary: Richie and Eddie walk into a bar.Hold my inhaler.





	Bed Knobs and Bar Fights

**Author's Note:**

> I got fed up with CW reddie plots and just wrote some closer to canon content. I love reddie, just like, regular brand.
> 
> Anyway. Wrote in an hour and slapped it on tumblr. You know.
> 
> They're 30 and the losers visit each other as adults because that's nice even though it's impossible.

 

There were only a few people in Eddie Kaspbrak’s life who knew it but he was a complete beast after you got a couple of drinks in him. There was this unknown sweet spot between A Good Buzz and Staggering where the slightest indiscretion on the part of another bar patron shoved him right into berserker mode. Eddie wasn’t chaotic in his ways, however. There was usually a perfectly good reason for him to floor a man twice his size with a well-placed flying tackle, but it still made going out for drinks a risky way to spend an evening out.

At first glance, this smaller, young-looking guy posed no threat to anyone. In fact, most big, aggressive men in any bar left him alone on principle. “That’s just too easy,” they’d think. “I’d get laughed at for knocking a guy like that around.” In addition to that, he kept to himself for the most part, and kept his attention on whoever he was with. Eddie didn’t go to bars to find hook-ups. The type of person one picks up at a bar usually isn’t relationship material and, even though relationships made him kind of queasy, Eddie wanted to do it right if he was going to do it at all. That’s just how he was.

The rowdier bars and clubs - the big ones with shoulder to shoulder crowds and loud, booming music - were best accompanied by Ben, Bev, or Richie. That particular night was just him and the Trashmouth. Contrary to popular belief, Eddie wasn’t a hard man to please. He’d go pretty much anywhere if it sounded like some good chucks were in store, so he was having a pretty good time standing at the end of the bar squashed against Richie and sipping a gin and tonic.

“Why would anyone say that?!” He shouted over whatever dance hit was blaring in the background.

Richie laughed, partly at his reaction to his story, partly at his face scrunched up in exaggerated disgust. He’d already had a few. “I mean, the guy makes six figures a year - people like that don’t give a fuck about other people -”

“ _You_  make six figures a year, you,” he hiccuped, “disc jockey hypocrite.”

“Hey, I care about other people! You don’t make much less, dude.”

Eddie blinked, glaring blearily at him. “Touché.” He quickly turned his head to wave the bartender down and slid his empty glass toward the young, frantic bar back. “But like, who just hauls off and tells someone they’re “talentless garbage”, anyway?”

“People in L.A., Eds.” Richie snorted, taking a brief sip of whatever he’d been drinking - he lost track a long time ago. “Look, I have no idea what people are like back wherever you are -”

“Rich, I live in New York, not Siberia.” 

“Whatever, look - my point is this here is a city of Dicks and Assholes, you’re either one or the other, if you get my drift.”

“Ah-huh. I can see why you’re here.” Richie squawked in mock-offense and Eddie winked and downed a good portion of his refilled drink.

“You’re drunk.”

He looked around and snorted. “Well, I mean...”

“ _Hey, man - chill out!”_

 _“What the fuck is your problem!?_ ”

The two paused and turned to look at the source of the outburst. Two guys, both pretty well-built, were having a sort of face-off a ways down the bar. Richie heard Eddie’s inhaler click - the newer ones were much quieter than the weird hissing contraptions he used as a kid. A brief look down at him was enough to tell Richie exactly where his drunk thought process was leading him. The guy was a little spitfire, always had been. It was funny because he still looked so young, especially washed out in the pink and orange neon lights from behind the bar. He had to bite his tongue to keep from laughing when he got carded three separate times at the same place that night.

There was a loud clatter and they watched a tray practically shoot into the air - a full-blown fight had erupted at that point, but there was a slightly higher pitched shout mixed into the din of the other bar patrons. It was probably a waitre-

“Hold my inhaler-”

“OH no, Eds, don-” but he was gone and Richie just stood there holding a little plastic canister full of albuterol. “Goddamnit.” He downed his mystery drink and scuttled off around the tight-packed bar crowd to find Eddie fucking Kaspbrak before he got himself into deep crap.

Thankfully, he caught a brief glimpse of his weird little color block polo shirt -  _“Easter egg colors, really??”, “Here comes Eddie cottontail, let’s get fucked up.”_ -  crouched on the floor opposite a young woman with tears in her eyes. Apparently the tray of drinks she was carrying became a shower of booze. It was sweet of him. Richie was seriously worried that he was about to-

“Hey, fuckface!”

-fight one of the big guys. “Oh no.”

“You gonna help this young lady or what?”

“ _Who the fuck are you talking to?”_

_“Where’s your mom, kid?”_

_“Two of them?!”_ Richie was seconds away from screaming.

“I’ll do y'a little favor, man, how ‘bout it?”

“ _Wha-”_ The guy didn’t finish his sentence because Eddie’s fist crashed right into his nose. “ _You little motherfu_ -”

The fact that Eddie could hit hard enough to turn a guy’s head was unthinkable. Sure, Eddie had hit Richie so hard his arm went numb once, but they were just playing The Circle Game and Richie was relatively dippy for someone his age. He needed to put a stop to Eddie's rampage before it got out of hand. They weren’t about to spend half of their visit in the hospital with his other arm broken. The problem was a small circle of people had formed around Eddie and one or both of the inconsiderate douchebags while Richie was reminiscing like a complete dingus.

He dashed up, trying to see over people’s shoulders even at a respectable 5′11″. They were on the floor and all he could make out were Eddie’s bony elbows swinging, left and right - _bang, bang_. “Fuck, hey, c’mon, can you let me through, I gotta -” No one was listening. Someone had their phone out. The bartenders were even peeking on their way by. Richie swore loudly. He shouldered his way through. “Move it!” A guy staggered out of his way and all 156 pounds of Richie knocked into Eddie. He took an elbow to the face but managed to get both arms under his pits, lifting him off of the guy and pushing him hard into the other side of the ring of gawkers. “We’re out! Let’s go!”

A strangled cry tore out of Eddie, but he yanked him to his feet and hauled him toward the exit door hidden next to the bathrooms. 

“I’ll give youse guise a ring-a-ding-ding in a hot second and close out that tab,  _TOUT SUITE_!” Richie had no idea why he did a Voice at the bartenders on his way by, but he did it anyway. Adrenaline, he supposed.

The outside was balmy and kind of sticky but degrees cooler than the inside. They weren’t going to hang out directly outside of the bar and get tracked down but someone weighing more than both of them combined, so Richie dragged Eddie down the sidewalk looking like a scene out of _Platoon_. He finally ran out of steam and ducked into an alleyway next to a 7-11, practically throwing Eddie behind a dumpster so they were blocked from plain view.

“Eddie, what the fuck!” He panted raggedly. “Why!?”

The other man started giggling. He seemed a little sobered up, but not enough to be fully aware of the gravity of his actions. “What a baby.”

Richie just stared at him.

“Sorry, I washed dishes in a restaurant for like, 2 weeks and,” he paused to burp. “I saw waitresses come back crying all the time. I get a little protective.” There was a faint slur in his voice. “Like a buncha...cute little sisters, ya gotta look out for ‘em.”

“You’re thirty!”

“I know that,  _Richard_.”

“God...” He reached down and took Eddie’s hand. A few of his knuckles on one hand were bleeding. “Didn’t you ever learn how to punch a guy properly?”

“A’course! I was just mad.” He squeezed Richie’s hand. “Pissed.”

Richie craned his neck around the dumpster before turning has gaze back to Eddie perched comfortably on an upturned crate. “Stay here. Don’t move.”

There had never been a quicker late night 7-11 purchase in the history of late night 7-11 purchases. The fact that Eddie, their junior field medic back in the day, didn’t give a single fuck about bleeding in a dirty alleyway was throwing Richie for a loop. It had only been a few years since he’d seen him last - maybe it was just because he was mildly intoxicated. At the very least, Eddie micromanaged Richie while he cleaned and dressed his busted knuckles with Bactine and gauze.

The really weird part was he was sure he’d seen that rash side of Eddie before and vaguely remembered something else about it being really weird. Richie tied the gauze wrap off in a neat little bow and Eddie leaned forward and threw his arms around his broad shoulders. 

“Thanks, man, not bad.” He said close to his ear, leaning back enough to kiss his cheek.

That was the something.

Richie’s entire face turned bright red. Eddie Kaspbrak was full of surprises and sometimes he couldn’t handle them. In fact, he was pretty sure they’d fooled around before. Certain, actually, since Eddie was pressing his lips against Richie’s. He had a brief image of Beverly sending Eddie home from Chicago with a little jar of her lip scrub. Richie only remembered that because she’d held him down and applied the living hell out of it once. Eddie’s tongue slipping into his mouth kicked him right out of that thought. 

“Hold on - jesus -” he mumbled, reluctantly pulling away with a maddeningly wet noise. “You’re drunk, man.” Eddie grunted, trying to get back to making out with him. “Let’s get you back to your room so you can sober up.”

“If I do that, are we good?” His hand was on Richie’s chest, lazily tracing lower, and he couldn’t really talk. Lower, lower, lower - right at his waistband, oh god.

“Yes, holy shit, cool it!” The smug grin on Eddie's face made him twitch. “Remind me to stop you after one drink next time.”

Eddie planted a quick kiss on his mouth. “You don’t mean that.”

He didn’t, he was just trying to keep the conversation going so he wouldn’t kiss that fucking grin off of his dumb little face. “C’mon get up, let’s get a cab.”

“You’re real cute when you’re all, uh, flustered and shit, Rich. It’s great. I missed it.”

“Yeah, well,” he gave him a hand up. “You’re a loose drunk so I don’t wanna hear it.”

“Heh, you’re gonna hear it later,” he trailed off and blinked. “I mean,  _I’m_  gonna hear it later. Because we’re going to have sex.”

Richie sighed deeply and flagged a taxi down quicker than he ever had in his life.

 

-END-

**Author's Note:**

> ey <3
> 
> Tumblr: http://dontletmediebitch.tumblr.com/  
> Art Blog: http://chilidogpaella.tumblr.com/


End file.
